ARM announced the availability of a new form of licensable
processor, which has been developed as part of its ongoing partnership with NEC
Electronics. The MPCore™ synthesizable multiprocessor, based on the ARMv6
architecture, can be configured to contain between one and four processors
delivering up to 2600 Dhrystone MIPS of performance. The MPCore multiprocessor
implements Adaptive Shutdown™ technology and the ARM® Intelligent Energy
Manager technology to reduce power consumption by up to 85 percent. NEC
Electronics will use the configurable ARM processor in high-performance,
low-power products across the consumer electronics, automotive and mobile
markets.

The MPCore multiprocessor implements between one and four
processors with cache coherency using a modified MESI protocol. It also features
configurable level 1 caches, 64-bit AMBA™ AXI interfaces, vector floating-point
coprocessors and programmable interrupt distribution. The processor supports
Adaptive Shutdown of unused processors to give dynamic power consumption as low
as 0.57mW/MHz from a generic 130nm process excluding cache. The ARM Intelligent
Energy Manager technology can further reduce consumption by dynamically
predicting the required performance and lowering the voltage and frequency.

ZigBee is a low data rate, low power, networked wireless standard for control
and monitoring applications based on IEEE Standard 802.15.4. ZigBee-enabled
products do not need hard wiring between a powered device and its switch
therefore, offering the potential to save millions of dollars in wiring costs in
new and existing construction. Target applications include home and office
lighting, environmental control and security, industrial sensors and controls,
and medical monitoring systems.

Atmel's AT86ZL3201 Z-Link Controller integrates encryption
hardware with an 8-bit AVR RISC processor and memory structures that are
optimized specifically to implement the ZigBee standard at the lowest possible
cost with the longest possible battery life. It also eliminates the need
for any firmware engineering for the ZigBee and 802.15.4 stacks. The controller
uses standard AVR development, debugging and emulation tools. Thus, code
development for the Z-Link Controller is identical to code development for any
other AVR-based design.

The AT86RF210 Z-Link 802.15.4 Radio is an 868 MHz/902-928 MHz,
802.15.4 and ZigBee-compliant transceiver with10 channels at 40 kpbs in the 915
MHz ISM band, and one channel at 20 kpbs in the European 868 MHz band. The air
interface is DSSS, including spreading and despreading, using BPSK. The PHY
includes receiver energy detection, link quality indication and clear channel
assessment. The Z-Link MAC allows network association and disassociation, has an
optional superframe structure with beacons for time synchronization and a GTS
mechanism for high priority communications. Atmel's AT86RF210 Z-Link radio
supports up to 65,000 nodes in star, cluster or mesh networks, with a range of
one to 100 meters. CSMA-CA is used for channel access, using contention-based
and contention-free access modes.

The radio uses 14.5 mA receive current and 4 mW (6 dBm)
transmit current at 1.8 volts. Power consumption in sleep mode is 1 uA.

Price and Availability:

Atmel's Z-Link ZigBee chipset will be available in May 2004
and will be priced at $6.75 in quantities of 100,000 for the radio, FFD
controller and 802.15.4 and ZigBee protocol stacks.

The AT86ZL3201 Z-Link controller will be available in 64-lead
TQFP and 64-ball LFBGA packages. The AT86RF210 Z-Link 868MHz/902-928MHz 802.15.4
transceiver will be available in a 48-pin QFN package.

Elan Microelectronics announced a new series of low cost 8-bit
RISC microcontrollers with 4K program ROM, 10-bit ADC, PWM, SPI and embedded LCD
driver. All seven eFH5830 products deliver up to 9 MIPS of computing power, -30
to 70 degrees Celsius operating temperature range and 2.2V to 5.5V operating
voltage. All products are available as OTP and mask versions in different
packages, ranging from 18 pin SOP and DIP to 48 pin SSOP.

Freescale has unveiled four new ColdFire® families - MCF547x,
MCF548x, MCF523x and MCF527x - which are made up of more than 20
microcontrollers.

The MCF547x and MCF548x families feature the new V4e
ColdFire core. Devices from these V4e-based families are capable of delivering
up to 410 MIPS at 266 MHz. The MCF548x meets industrial temperature demands and
is one of the first dual-CAN (controller area network), dual-Ethernet processors
available today. The MCF547x and MCF548x families also include an USB 2.0 High
Speed interface with integrated PHY and offer optional hardware accelerated
encryption to support SSI, SSH, or IPSec.

The MCF523x family, based on the V2 ColdFire
core,features an enhanced Time Processing Unit (eTPU), a real-time control
co-processor dedicated to performing high-speed, complex timing and
input/output, freeing up the central processing unit (CPU) for other tasks. The
MCF523x family also serves as a natural migration path and upgrade for Freescale
MC68332 customers requiring higher performance and/or networking support.

Other on-chip features include up to two integrated CAN interfaces, an Ethernet
interface along with cryptography acceleration for cost-effective processors
used in networked and stand-alone complex real-time control applications. The
ColdFire core on these families includes an enhanced Multiply-Accumulate Unit (eMAC)
providing high performance of 144 MIPS (Dhrystone 2.1) at 150 MHz.

The MCF527x family builds upon the peripheral mix of
the MCF5272 processor. These devices offer an upgrade at no additional cost for
current MCF5272 users - with added performance, a second 10/100 Mbps Ethernet
MAC and hardware encryption to help ensure the application can enable secure
communication.

To support these ColdFire families, Freescale has developed an affordable
companion power management IC, the MC34710. The MCF34710 offers built-in
flexibility through user-adjustable voltages, which allow reduced power
dissipation by removing or lowering voltages under MCU control. This helps
reduce design time, procurement costs and risk.

Microchip announced an design contest for the dsPIC®
16-bit Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs). First price is a Harley-Davidson®
Motorcycle or $15,000USD in cash. Other prizes include a 43” plasma television
or $7,500USD cash and a DVD home theater entertainment system or $3,000 USD
cash, among others.

To participate in the design contest you must buy the dsPIC30F
Design Contest Kit by June 11, 2004. The kit contains a dsPICDEM™ 1.1 General
Purpose Development Board and all of the tools necessary to participate in
Microchip’s Contest.`

Renesas announced the SH-Mobile3, product name: SH73180,
incorporating a new SH4AL-DSP high-performance CPU core as the top-end model in
the SH-Mobile Series of application processors for mobile phone systems.

The SH-Mobile3 is an application processor for high-end next-generation mobile
phone models. It incorporates a high-processing-performance 32-bit RISC CPU
core, 2D/3D graphics engine, and MPEG-4 full hardware accelerator, allowing it
to handle various kinds of advanced multimedia applications with ease.

The SH-Mobile3 incorporates a newly developed SH4AL-DSP CPU
core and achieves processing performance of 389 MIPS (million instructions per
second) at a maximum operating frequency of 216 MHz. This represents an
approximately 2.3-fold improvement in performance over the 173 MIPS maximum
processing performance (at 133 MHz operation) of the current SH-Mobile Series.
The instruction set of the SH4AL-DSP is upward-compatible with that of the
current product CPU core SH3-DSP, allowing existing programs to be used and
system development time to be shortened.

The SH-Mobile3 incorporates a camera interface allowing direct
connection to a 3-megapixel class camera module. It is also equipped with a
video output unit, making it possible to connect a mobile phone system to a TV
set and display moving images shot with a camera.

A PowerVRMBX Lite IP from Imagination
Technologies, Ltd. (IMG) is used as a 2D/3D graphics engine, providing
high-speed display of realistic, high-quality 2D/3D images. In addition, an
MPEG-4 full hardware accelerator provides the high-quality moving image
processing capability required for video-mail and video-phones.

The XE88LC02 microcontroller from XEMICS features a "zooming",
high-resolution A/D converter with programmable gain/offset amplifier. The ADC
has 4 differential or 7 pseudo differential inputs. It can apply a gain of 1000
to the sensing element's signal while rejecting its offset, and then convert the
resulting signal with a resolution of 16 bits. The XE88LC02's A/D can be
directly connected to any type of resistive sensor, and benefits from simplified
calibration.

The XE88LC02 also features a 120 segments LCD driver, FLASH
program memory with 100 years data retention, UART and SPI communication
interfaces, and numerous IO.

The XE88LC02 programmable version is available from $5 in
large volume in LQFP100, and from $2.90 in bare die for the ROM version

MicroController Pros Corporation (µCPros) is an authorized
distributor for many microcontroller tool vendors, which enables us to offer you
a large selection of Microcontroller Development Tools for almost any major
microcontroller architecture. OurMicroControllerShop (http://microcontrollershop.com) puts convenient
and secure online shopping, feature- and price-comparison on your computer's
desktop.